Colorectal cancer is the second leading cause of cancer mortality in United States and fourth worldwide. Although colorectal cancer has good therapeutic response at early stages, advanced stages are frequently associated with metastasis and poor prognosis. Therefore, regular screening and early diagnosis of the disease is pivotal to therapeutic success. Currently used diagnostic procedures such as endoscopy and biopsy are invasive and time-consuming. The sensitivity and specificity of serum-based carcinoembryonic antigen test has also been found to be poor for early diagnosis. Lack of high-throughput noninvasive markers continues to contribute to avoidable healthcare burden and mortality.
Metabolomics has the potential to be a useful tool for identification of changes in biochemical signature associated with pathogenesis. However, tissue metabolomics, which requires biopsy samples, is also invasive. Moreover, there has been a general lack of studies investigating the mechanistic link between these biomarkers and changes in cancer tissue. Accordingly, high-throughput noninvasive methods for detecting neoplasia are urgently required.